The Godfather 13 страница

тем же самым; применять репрессалии; retaliatory [rı’tжlı∂t∂rı] – ответный,

ответный удар; репрессивный) war that was sure to follow. Nobody made the mistake

of assuming that Don Corleone could be held cheaply because of his past misfortunes.

He was a man who had made only a few mistakes in his career and had learned from

every one of them.

Only Hagen guessed the Don's real intentions and was not surprised when emissaries

were sent to the Five Families to propose a peace. Not only to propose a peace but a

meeting of all the Families in the city and with invitations to Families all over the United

States to attend. Since the New York Families were the most powerful in the country, it

was understood that their welfare affected the welfare of the country as a whole.

At first there were suspicions. Was Don Corleone preparing a trap (западня)? Was he

trying to throw his enemies off their guard? Was he attempting to prepare a wholesale

massacre to avenge his son? But Don Corleone soon made it clear that he was sincere.

Not only did he involve all the Families in the country in this meeting, but made no move

to put his own people on a war footing (привести в боевую готовность) or to enlist

allies. And then he took the final irrevocable (неотменяемый, окончательный,

безвозвратный [ı'rev∂k∂bl]) step that established the authenticity of these intentions

and assured the safety of the grand council to be assembled. He called on the services

of the Bocchicchio Family.

The Bocchicchio Family was unique in that, once a particularly ferocious branch of the

Mafia in Sicily, it had become an instrument of peace in America. Once a group of men

who earned their living by a savage determination, they now earned their living in what

perhaps could be called a saintly fashion. The Bocchicchios' one asset (имущество

/часто об одном предмете/; ценное качество /разг./) was a closely knit structure of

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blood relationships, a family loyalty severe even for a society where family loyalty came

before loyalty to a wife.

The Bocchicchio Family, extending out to third cousins, had once numbered nearly

two hundred when they ruled the particular economy of a small section of southern

Sicily. The income for the entire family then came from four or five flour mills, by no

means owned communally, but assuring labor and bread and a minimal security for all

Family members. This was enough, with intermarriages, for them to present a common

front against their enemies.

No competing mill, no dam that would create a water supply to their competitors or

ruin their own selling of water, was allowed to be built in their corner of Sicily. A powerful

landowning baron once tried to erect his own mill strictly for his personal use. The mill

was burned down. He called on the carabineri (полицейские /итал./) and higher

authorities, who arrested three of the Bocchicchio Family. Even before the trial the

manor house of the baron was torched (подожжен; torch – факел). The indictment

(обвинительный акт [ın'daıtm∂nt]) and accusations were withdrawn. A few months later

one of the highest functionaries in the Italian government arrived in Sicily and tried to

solve the chronic water shortage of that island by proposing a huge dam. Engineers

arrived from Rome to do surveys while watched by grim natives, members of the

Bocchicchio clan. Police flooded the area, housed in a specially built barracks.

It looked like nothing could stop the dam from being built and supplies and equipment

had actually been unloaded in Palermo. That was as far as they got. The Bocchicchios

had contacted fellow Mafia chiefs and extracted agreements for their aid. The heavy

equipment was sabotaged, the lighter equipment stolen. Mafia deputies in the Italian

Parliament launched a bureaucratic counterattack against the planners. This went on for

several years and in that time Mussolini came to power. The dictator decreed that the

dam must be built. It was not. The dictator had known that the Mafia would be a threat

to his regime, forming what amounted to a separate authority from his own. He gave full

powers to a high police official, who promptly solved the problem by throwing everybody

into jail or deporting them to penal work islands. In a few short years he had broken the

power of the Mafia, simply by arbitrarily arresting anyone even suspected of being a

mafioso. And so also brought ruin to a great many innocent families.

The Bocchicchios had been rash enough to resort to force against this unlimited

power. Half of the men were killed in armed combat, the other half deported to penal

island colonies. There were only a handful left when arrangements were made for them

to emigrate to America via the clandestine underground route of jumping ship through

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Canada. There were almost twenty immigrants and they settled in a small town not far

from New York City, in the Hudson Valley, where by starting at the very bottom they

worked their way up to owning a garbage hauling firm (фирма по вывозу мусора; to

haul – тянуть, тащить, волочить; перевозить) and their own trucks. They became

prosperous because they had no competition. They had no competition because

competitors found their trucks burned and sabotaged. One persistent fellow who

undercut prices was found buried in the garbage he had picked up during the day,

smothered (to smother [‘smΛр∂] – душить; задохнуться) to death.

But as the men married, to Sicilian girls, needless to say, children came, and the

garbage business though providing a living, was not really enough to pay for the finer

things America had to offer. And so, as a diversification (ответвление; боковая линия;

/здесь/ дополнительное занятие), the Bocchicchio Family became negotiators and

hostages in the peace efforts of warring Mafia families.

A strain of stupidity ran through the Bocchicchio clan, or perhaps they were just

primitive. In any case they recognized their limitations and knew they could not compete

with other Mafia families in the struggle to organize and control more sophisticated

business structures like prostitution, gambling, dope and public fraud (обман,

мошенничество /здесь – государства/ [fro:d]). They were straight-from-the-shoulder

(сплеча, прямо, без обиняков) people who could offer a gift to an ordinary patrolman

but did not know how to approach a political bagman. They had only two assets. Their

honor and their ferocity.

A Bocchicchio never lied, never committed an act of treachery. Such behavior was too

complicated. Also, a Bocchicchio never forgot an injury and never left it unavenged no

matter what the cost. And so by accident they stumbled into what would prove to be

their most lucrative profession.

When warring families wanted to make peace and arrange a parley, the Bocchicchio

clan was contacted. The head of the clan would handle the initial negotiations and

arrange for the necessary hostages. For instance, when Michael had gone to meet

Sollozzo, a Bocchicchio had been left with the Corleone Family as surety for Michael's

safety, the service paid for by Sollozzo. If Michael were killed by Sollozzo, then the

Bocchicchio male hostage held by the Corleone Family would be killed by the

Corleones. In this case the Bocchicchios would take their vengeance on Sollozzo as the

cause of their clansman's death. Since the Bocchicchios were so primitive, they never

let anything, any kind of punishment, stand in their way of vengeance. They would give

up their own lives and there was no protection against them if they were betrayed. A

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Bocchicchio hostage (заложник; залог ['hostıdG]) was gilt-edged (с золотым обрезом;

первоклассный; gilt – позолота) insurance (гарантия, страхование).

And so now when Don Corleone employed the Bocchicchios as negotiators and

arranged for them to supply hostages for all the Families to come to the peace meeting,

there could be no question as to his sincerity. There could be no question of treachery.

The meeting would be safe as a wedding.

Hostages given, the meeting took place in the director's conference room of a small

commercial bank whose president was indebted to Don Corleone and indeed some of

whose stock belonged to Don Corleone though it was in the president's name. The

president always treasured that moment when he had offered to give Don Corleone a

written document proving his ownership of the shares, to preclude (предотвратить) any

treachery. Don Corleone had been horrified. "I would trust you with my whole fortune,"

he told the president. "I would trust you with my life and the welfare (благосостояние)

of my children. It is inconceivable (немыслимо, непредставимо) to me that you would

ever trick me or otherwise betray me. My whole world, all my faith in my judgment of

human character would collapse. Of course I have my own written records so that if

something should happen to me my heirs would know that you hold something in trust

for them. But I know that even if I were not here in this world to guard the interests of my

children, you would be faithful to their needs."

The president of the bank, though not Sicilian, was a man of tender sensibilities. He

understood the Don perfectly. Now the Godfather's request was the president's

command and so on a Saturday afternoon, the executive suite of the bank, the

conference room with its deep leather chairs, its absolute privacy, was made available

to the Families.

Security at the bank was taken over by a small army of handpicked (выбранный,

подобранный; отборный) men wearing bank guard uniforms. At ten o'clock on a

Saturday morning the conference room began to fill up. Besides the Five Families of

New York, there were representatives from ten other Families across the country, with

the exception of Chicago, that black sheep of their world. They had given up trying to

civilize Chicago, and they saw no point in including those mad dogs in this important

conference.

A bar had been set up and a small buffet. Each representative to the conference had

been allowed one aide (помощник, адъютант [eıd]). Most of the Dons had brought their

Consiglioris as aides so there were comparatively few young men in the room. Tom

Hagen was one of those young men and the only one who was not Sicilian. He was an

object of curiosity, a freak (каприз, причуда; уродец; человек или явление,

выходящее за рамки обычного).

Hagen knew his manners. He did not speak, he did not smile. He waited on his boss,

Don Corleone, with all the respect of a favorite earl (граф /английский/ [∂:l]) waiting on

his king; bringing him a cold drink, lighting his cigar, positioning his ashtray; with respect

but no obsequiousness (подобострастие; obsequious [∂b’si:kwı∂s] –

подобострастный).

Hagen was the only one in that room who knew the identity of the portraits hanging on

the dark paneled walls. They were mostly portraits of fabulous financial figures done in

rich oils. One was of Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton. Hagen could not help thinking

that Hamilton might have approved of this peace meeting being held in a banking

institution. Nothing was more calming, more conducive to pure reason, than the

atmosphere of money.

The arrival time had been staggered (to stagger – шататься, колебаться;

регулировать часы работы) for between nine-thirty to ten A.M. Don Corleone, in a

sense the host since he had initiated the peace talks, had been the first to arrive; one of

his many virtues was punctuality. The next to arrive was Carlo Tramonti, who had made

the southern part of the United States his territory. He was an impressively handsome

middle-aged man, tall for a Sicilian, with a very deep sunburn, exquisitely tailored and

barbered. He did not look Italian, he looked more like one of those pictures in the

magazines of millionaire fishermen lolling (to loll – сидеть развалясь; стоять

/облокотясь/ в ленивой позе) on their yachts. The Tramonti Family earned its

livelihood from gambling, and no one meeting their Don would ever guess with what

ferocity he had won his empire.

Emigrating from Sicily as a small boy, he had settled in Florida and grown to manhood

there, employed by the American syndicate of Southern small-town politicians who

controlled gambling. These were very tough men backed up by very tough police

officials and they never suspected that they could be overthrown by such a greenhorn

(новичок, неопытный человек) immigrant. They were unprepared for his ferocity and

could not match it simply because the rewards being fought over were not, to their

minds, worth so much bloodshed. Tramonti won over the police with bigger shares of

the gross (общая масса [gr∂us]); he exterminated those redneck (неотесанный

человек, деревенщина) hooligans who ran their operation with such a complete lack of

imagination. It was Tramonti who opened ties with Cuba and the Batista regime and

eventually poured money into the pleasure resorts of Havana gambling houses,

whorehouses, to lure (завлекать, заманивать [lu∂]) gamblers from the American

mainland. Tramonti was now a millionaire many times over and owned one of the most

luxurious hotels in Miami Beach.

When he came into the conference room followed by his aide, an equally sunburned

Consigliori, Tramonti embraced Don Corleone, made a face of sympathy to show he

sorrowed for the dead son.

Other Dons were arriving. They all knew each other, they had met over the years,

either socially or when in the pursuit of their businesses. They had always showed each

other professional courtesies and in their younger, leaner (lean – тощий, худой) days

had done each other little services. The second Don to arrive was Joseph Zaluchi from

Detroit. The Zaluchi Family, under appropriate disguises and covers, owned one of the

horse-racing tracks in the Detroit area. They also owned a good part of the gambling.

Zaluchi was a moon-faced, amiable-looking man who lived in a one-hundred-thousand-

dollar house in the fashionable Grosse Point section of Detroit. One of his sons had

married into an old, well-known American family. Zaluchi, like Don Corleone, was

sophisticated (скушенный, изощренный, сложный, непростой). Detroit had the lowest

incidence of physical violence of any of the cities controlled by the Families; there had

been only two executions in the last three years in that city. He disapproved of traffic in

drugs.

Zaluchi had brought his Consigliori with him and both men came to Don Corleone to

embrace him. Zaluchi had a booming American voice with only the slightest trace of an

accent. He was conservatively dressed, very businessman, and with a hearty goodwill

to match. He said to Don Corleone, "Only your voice could have brought me here." Don

Corleone bowed his head in thanks. He could count on Zaluchi for support.

The next two Dons to arrive were from the West Coast, motoring from there in the

same car since they worked together closely in any case. They were Frank Falcone and

Anthony Molinari and both were younger than any of the other men who would come to

the meeting; in their early forties. They were dressed a little more informally than the

others, there was a touch of Hollywood in their style and they were a little more friendly

than necessary. Frank Falcone controlled the movie unions and the gambling at the

studios plus a complex of pipeline (трубопровод, нефтепровод) prostitution that

supplied girls to the whorehouses of the states in the Far West. It was not in the realm

of possibility for any Don to become "show biz" but Falcone had just a touch. His fellow

Dons distrusted him accordingly.

Anthony Molinari controlled the waterfronts of San Francisco and was preeminent

(выдающийся, превосходящий других) in the empire of sports gambling. He came of

Italian fishermen stock and owned the best San Francisco sea food restaurant, in which

he took such pride that the legend had it he lost money on the enterprise by giving too

good value for the prices charged. He had the impassive face of the professional

gambler and it was known that he also had something to do with dope smuggling over

the Mexican border and from the ships plying (to ply – курсировать, совершать рейс /о

корабле/) the lanes (lane – узкая дорога, тропинка /особ. между живыми

изгородями/; морской путь) of the oriental oceans. Their aides were young, powerfully

built men, obviously not counselors but bodyguards, though they would not dare to carry

arms to this meeting. It was general knowledge that these bodyguards knew karate, a

fact that amused the other Dons but did not alarm them in the slightest, no more than if

the California Dons had come wearing amulets blessed by the Pope. Though it must be

noted that some of these men were religious and believed in God.

Next arrived the representative from the Family in Boston. This was the only Don who

did not have the respect of his fellows. He was known as a man who did not do right by

his "people," who cheated them unmercifully. This could be forgiven, each man

measures his own greed. What could not be forgiven was that he could not keep order

in his empire. The Boston area had too many murders, too many petty wars for power,

too many unsupported free-lance activities; it flouted (to flout – попирать, глумиться)

the law too brazenly. If the Chicago Mafia were savages, then the Boston people were

gavones, or uncouth (неуклюжий, грубоватый, неотесанный [Λn'ku:θ]) louts (lout –

неуклюжий, неотесанный человек, деревенщина); ruffians. The Boston Don's name

was Domenick Panza. He was short, squat; as one Don put it, he looked like a thief.

The Cleveland syndicate, perhaps the most powerful of the strictly gambling

operations in the United States, was represented by a sensitive-looking elderly man with

gaunt (сухопарый; длинный, вытянутый в длину; мрачный) features and snow-white

hair. He was known, of course not to his face, as "the Jew" because he had surrounded

himself with Jewish assistants rather than Sicilians. It was even rumored that he would

have named a Jew as his Consigliori if he had dared. In any case, as Don Corleone's

Family was known as the Irish Gang because of Hagen's membership, so Don Vincent

Forlenza's Family was known as the Jewish Family with somewhat more accuracy. But

he ran an extremely efficient organization and he was not known ever to have fainted at

the sight of blood, despite his sensitive features. He ruled with an iron hand in a velvet

political glove.

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The representatives of the Five Families of New York were the last to arrive and Tom

Hagen was struck by how much more imposing, impressive, these five men were than

the out-of-towners, the hicks. For one thing, the five New York Dons were in the old

Sicilian tradition, they were "men with a belly" meaning, figuratively, power and courage;

and literally, physical flesh, as if the two went together, as indeed they seem to have

done in Sicily. The five New York Dons were stout, corpulent men with massive leonine

heads, features on a large scale, fleshy imperial noses, thick mouths, heavy folded

cheeks. They were not too well tailored or barbered; they had the look of no-nonsense

busy men without vanity.

There was Anthony Stracci, who controlled the New Jersey area and the shipping on

the West Side docks of Manhattan. He ran the gambling in Jersey and was very strong

with the Democratic political machine. He had a fleet of freight hauling trucks that made

him a fortune primarily because his trucks could travel with a heavy overload and not be

stopped and fined by highway weight inspecton. These trucks helped ruin the highways

and then his road-building firm, with lucrative state contracts, repaired the damage

wrought. It was the kind of operation that would warm any man's heart, business of itself

creating more business. Stracci, too, was old-fashioned and never dealt in prostitution,

but because his business was on the waterfront it was impossible for him not to be

involved in the drug-smuggling traffic. Of the five New York Families opposing the

Corleones his was the least powerful but the most well disposed.

The Family that controlled upper New York State, that arranged smuggling of Italian

immigrants from Canada, all upstate (северная часть штата) gambling and exercised

veto power on state licensing of racing tracks, was headed by Ottilio Cuneo. This was a

completely disarming man with the face of a jolly round peasant baker, whose legitimate

activity was one of the big milk companies. Cuneo was one of those men who loved

children and carried a pocket full of sweets in the hopes of being able to pleasure one of

his many grandchildren or the small offspring (отпрыск) of his associates. He wore a

round fedora with the brim turned down all the way round like a woman's sun hat, which

broadened his already moon-shaped face into the very mask of joviality. He was one of

the few Dons who had never been arrested and whose true activities had never even

been suspected. So much so that he had served on civic committees and had been

voted as "Businessman of the Year for the State of New York" by the Chamber of

Commerce.

The closest ally to the Tattaglia Family was Don Emilio Barzini. He had some of the

gambling in Brooklyn and some in Queens. He had some prostitution. He had strong-

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arm. He completely controlled Staten Island. He had some of the sports betting in the

Bronx and Westchester. He was in narcotics. He had close ties to Cleveland and the

West Coast and he was one of the few men shrewd enough to be interested in Las

Vegas and Reno, the open cities of Nevada. He also had interests in Miami Beach and

Cuba. After the Corleone Family, his was perhaps the strongest in New York and

therefore in the country. His influence reached even to Sicily. His hand was in every

unlawful pie. He was even rumored (о нем даже ходили слухи; rumor [‘ru:m∂] – слух,

молва) to have a toehold (точка опоры /напр. для ноги, когда взбираешься на гору/,

зацепка; toe – палец ноги) in Wall Street. He had supported the Tattaglia Family with

money and influence since the start of the war. It was his ambition to supplant

(вытеснить, занять чье-то место [s∂’plα:nt]) Don Corleone as the most powerful and

respected Mafia leader in the country and to take over part of the Corleone empire. He

was a man much like Don Corleone, but more modern, more sophisticated, more

businesslike. He could never be called an old Moustache Pete and he had the

confidence of the newer, younger, brasher (brashy – щетинистый, шероховатый)

leaders on their way up. He was a man of great personal force in a cold way, with none

of Don Corleone's warmth and he was perhaps at this moment the most "respected"

man in the group.

The last to arrive was Don Phillip Tattaglia, the head of the TattagIia Family that had

directly challenged the Corleone power by supporting Sollozzo, and had so nearly

succeeded. And yet curiously enough he was held in a slight contempt by the others.

For one thing, it was known that he had allowed himself to be dominated by Sollozzo,

had in fact been led by the nose by that fine Turkish hand. He was held responsible for

all this commotion (волнение /моря/; смятение; суматоха, суета), this uproar that had

so affected the conduct of everyday business by the New York Families. Also he was a

sixty-year-old dandy (щеголь, франт) and woman-chaser. And he had ample

(обширный, достаточный) opportunity to indulge his weakness.

For the Tattaglia Family dealt in women. Its main business was prostitution. It also

controlled most of the nightclubs in the United States and could place any talent

anywhere in the country. Phillip Tattaglia was not above using strong-arm to get control